Abstract
This chapter starts from the need to decentre from overly Western-/Euro-centric ways of dealing with interculturality as an object of research and education. And while democracy-talk has started to ‘creep in’ intercultural communication education, under the leadership of e.g. the Council of Europe, other voices from the periphery (e.g. the Global South) are still to be heard and listened to about interculturality. The authors focus on the concept of Zhongyong (中庸) from China as a proposal for thinking, unthinking and rethinking interculturality. An untranslatable in English, the concept has been referred to as e.g. centre, Doctrine of the Mean, or The Golden Mean and derives from Confucianism and has always been at the centre of Confucian concerns (e.g. community life). The chapter makes sense of this complex concept and shows how it can help interculturalists enrich their take on the notion of interculturality by both seeking for similarities with their own understanding of the notion and exploring the specificities of Zhongyong. The authors argue that multilingual, systematic, critical and reflexive engagement with concepts from outside the ‘West’ can make interculturality as an object of research and education more intercultural and thus prone to dialogue and negotiations, revising imbalanced power relations in global knowledge production.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
In the chapter, we only put Zhongyong in italics when we refer to the book of the same name (The Zhongyong). By not using italics for the concept, we wish to send the message that the word should be equally treated as other concepts in English and suggest thus integrating it fully in the research language of interculturality.
References
Aman, R. (2017). Decolonising intercultural education: colonial differences, the geopolitics of knowledge, and inter-epistemic dialogue. Routledge.
Barthes, R. (1994). Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes. University of California Press.
Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Multilingual Matters.
Byram, M. (2008). From foreign language education to education for intercultural citizenship. Essays and reflections. Multilingual Matters.
Cassin, B. (2016). Translation as paradigm for human sciences. Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 30(3), 242–266.
Cheng, A. (2007). Can China think? College de France Editions.
Council of Europe. (2016). Reference framework of competences for democratic culture (RFCDC). Retrieved from https://www.coe.int/en/web/reference-framework-of-competences-for-democratic-culture/home
Council of Europe. (2022). Strengthening democratic citizenship education in Albania. Retrieved from https://www.coe.int/en/web/tirana/strengthening-democratic-citizenship-education-in-albania
Dányi, E. (2020). Are parliaments still privileged sites for studying politics and liberal democracy? In A. Blok, I. Farías, & C. Roberts (Eds.), The Routledge companion to actor-network theory (pp. 298–305). Routledge.
Deardorff, D. (2019). Manual for develo** intercultural competencies. Routledge & UNESCO.
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (2004). A thousand plateaus. Continuum.
Dervin, F. (2016). Interculturality in education: A theoretical and methodological toolbox. Palgrave Macmillan.
Dervin, F. (2022). Interculturality in fragments: A reflexive approach. Springer.
Dervin, F., & Jacobsson, A. (2022). Intercultural communication education: Broken realities and rebellious dreams. Springer.
Fang, T. (2012). Yin Yang: A new perspective on culture. Management and Organization Review, 8(1), 25–50.
Fang, W. (2019). Modern notions of civilization and culture in China. Palgrave Macmillan.
Fei. (1999). 推己及人 [Consider others in one’s own place]. In: Pan, N. (ed.). 中和位育: 潘光旦百年诞辰纪念日 [Zhong He Wei Yu: Centenary Anniversary for Mr. Pan Guangdan] (pp. VII–XI). Bei**g: China Renmin University Press.
Ferri, G. (2018). Intercultural communication: Critical approaches, future challenges. Palgrave Macmillan.
Foucault, M. (1998). Technologies of the Self. University Massachusetts Press.
Holliday, A., Hyde, M., & Kullman, J. (2004). Intercultural communication: An advanced resource book. Routledge.
Holliday, A., & Amadasi, S. (2020). Making sense of the intercultural. Finding Decentred threads. Routledge.
Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture. (2022a). Balanced Harmony. Retrieved from https://www.chinesethought.cn/EN/shuyu_show.aspx?shuyu_id=4034
Key Concepts in Chinese Thought and Culture. (2022b). Zhongyong. Retrieved from https://www.chinesethought.cn/EN/shuyu_show.aspx?shuyu_id=2179
Li, C. (2020). Zhong and Zhongyong in Confucian classics. Palgrave MacMillan.
Piller, I. (2010). Intercultural communication. Edinburgh University Press.
Porto, M., Houghton, S. A., & Byram, M. (2017). Intercultural citizenship in the (foreign) language classroom. Language Teaching Research, 22(5), 484–498.
Servaes, J. (2016). Guanxi in intercultural communication and public relations. Public Relations Review, 42(3), 459–464.
Simone, A. M. (2014). Jakarta: Drawing the city near. University of Minnesota Press.
The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (现代汉语词典). (2005). Bei**g: The Commercial Press.
Tian, B. (2022). Philosophical thought and educational implication of the ideas of Zhong (中). ECNU Review of Education, 5(2), 328–337.
Wang, G. (2022). 大学, 中庸 [Da Xue, The Zhongyong]. Bei**g: Zhonghua Book Company.
**e, W. (2017). Sincerity and the impasse of the exemplary person: An analysis of the Zhongyong, with attention to Christian faith. In X. Yao (Ed.), Reconceptualizing Confucian Philosophy in the 21st Century (pp. 257–272). Springer.
Xu, R. (2015). 论语, 大学, 中庸 [The Lunyu, The Daxue, The Zhongyong]. Bei**g: Zhonghua Book Company.
Xu, K. (2017). Zhong and the language of clustered meanings: A synthetic exploration of the way of Zhong in early Confucian philosophy. In X. Yao (Ed.), Reconceptualizing Confucian Philosophy in the 21st Century (pp. 177–190). Springer.
Yao, X. (2000). An introduction to Confucianism. Cambridge University Press.
Yao, X. (Ed.). (2017). Reconceptualizing Confucian philosophy in the 21st century. Springer.
Yulita, L. (2018). Competences for democratic culture: An empirical study of an intercultural citizenship project in language pedagogy. Language Teaching Research, 22(5), 499–516.
Zhang, J. (2021). “A sense of life”: The abstruse language of taste in Chinese culture. Food, Culture & Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2021.1971437
Zuo, A. (2005). 细说汉字: 1000个汉字的起源与演变 [Elaborate Chinese character: The origin and changes of 1000 Chinese characters]. Jiuzhou Press.
Zuo, Q. (2015). 国语 [Discourses of the states]. Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Tian, X., Dervin, F. (2023). Intercultural Communication Education Beyond ‘Western’ Democracy-Talk: Zhongyong as a Way of Decentring Democracy-Based Teaching. In: Zajda, J., Hallam, P., Whitehouse, J. (eds) Globalisation, Values Education and Teaching Democracy . Globalisation, Comparative Education and Policy Research, vol 35. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15896-4_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15896-4_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-15895-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-15896-4
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)